


Lines

by kaalee



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Drama, M/M, Slash, The Quidditch Pitch: The Changing Room
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-04-10
Updated: 2006-04-10
Packaged: 2018-10-26 14:57:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10789008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaalee/pseuds/kaalee
Summary: Harry has nightmares at night. Ron tries to help smooth the lines that have deepened on Harry's face and discovers something else...





	Lines

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Annie, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Quidditch Pitch](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Quidditch_Pitch), which went offline in 2015 when the hosting expired, at a time I was not able to renew it. I contacted Open Doors, hoping to preserve the archive using an old backup, and began importing these works as an Open Doors-approved project in April 2017. Open Doors e-mailed all authors about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact us using the e-mail address on [The Quidditch Pitch collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thequidditchpitch/profile).

  
Author's notes:

Harry/Ron

Written for the hprwfqf on livejournal. This was started months ago as a birthday present for shocolate, but stalled out. One of the challenges for the fqf inspired me to continue. Many snogs to willysunny for the quick and helpful beta work. Without her, this would have had way too many repeated words. :)   
  
~dedicated to and written for my darling shocolate who makes me smile and makes me proud to call her my friend. ♥

* * *

 

**Lines** **  
Harry/Ron, NC-17**  
  
  
~*~*~  
  
  
Ron had been helping Harry sleep for years. He didn't think Harry knew.  
  
The moans woke him again and Ron was on his feet and shuffling toward Harry's bed before he was completely awake. The dark-haired boy mumbled unintelligible words and writhed against invisible forces. Ron rested his hand on Harry's forehead and spoke low, "Harry, you're okay. You're okay. I won't let anything happen to you... shhh..."  
  
It took longer than it usually did, but eventually Harry's breathing evened and the creases on his forehead subsided. Ron padded back to his own bed and bit his knuckle until it hurt. Harry had had nightmares nearly every night for the past few weeks and in the light of the sun, Ron could see that lines had started edging their way into Harry's face. It didn't seem fair to him somehow. Harry was only seventeen.  
  
Ron didn't know when or how he'd started silently comforting Harry during nightmares, but it had been so long now, it almost felt like it was a part of him. Something he was happy to do. The least he could do, really.  
  
It always felt like something, but it never felt like enough.  
  
  
~*~*~  
  
  
Ron realized that he'd been thinking that a lot. It wasn't fair. Why should Harry have to deal with so much? And Ron couldn't do anything. Anything.  
  
It was one thing to help your best friend with homework or write an essay for him when he'd been awake all night in a cold sweat and hadn't been given any slack by his professors. That was nothing. What was forty-seven extra minutes when what Harry carried with him was forty-seven times worse than Ron could even imagine?  
  
The things he really wanted to do for Harry were impossible. He didn't know how to take the load that hovered over Harry all the time.  
  
But he would if he could. He couldn't bear it.  
  
  
~*~*~  
  
  
On many nights, Ron awoke to find himself sitting on Harry's bed, trailing sleep-warmed fingers over his face, murmuring words he could never remember in the morning, but seemed to smooth away the creases that deepened the more Harry writhed on the bed, unconscious, unknowingly miserable.  
  
  
~*~*~  
  
  
Somehow, Harry never seemed to remember in the dim light of the early morning. Ron would wake to see Harry lying there, eyes open and Ron would grunt, _Good Morning_ , with his typical morning dishumor and Harry would smile at him.  
  
Some mornings, Harry actually looked relieved. Relieved was one thing Ron never felt in the morning. Grumpy, annoyed, tired? Yes. But never relieved. Somehow the morning light never quite seemed to be the reprieve to Ron that it seemed to be to Harry.  
  
They could go for nights without Harry's nightmares waking Ron, and Ron always worried that on those nights Harry still had nightmares, but Ron just wasn't there to help him. That thought was almost too much to bear. Although, on those mornings Harry just smiled at him like it was a normal morning; there was no clear sense of relief in his face. Only a smile.  
  
Ron wondered if there was something he should learn from that.  
  
  
~*~*~  
  
  
At one point, Ron started to think that he was able to predict Harry's moods.  
  
Ron wasn't sure how he figured it out, but it had started one day when he'd had a _feeling_ and he just walked Harry past the trapdoor to Divination and they went for a walk by the lake and ended up floating leaf boats for an hour.  
  
On their way back to the castle, Harry had thanked him. "I was going crazy, Ron," he'd said. "My skin was crawling and I felt like I was about to pass out or throw myself out the window."  
  
"Understandable," Ron forced a laugh, "particularly when all you have to look forward to is being told by Trelawney that you're on the verge of twelve hundred and thirty-seven kinds of death." He wondered then if it might have to do with nightmares from all the nights before and how they built up into a giant weight until Harry either collapsed or had a melt-down in class and inevitably ended up in the hospital wing.  
  
Harry laughed, "Well! It might have only been twelve hundred and thirty- _six_ and then I missed my one day of reprieve."  
  
"Was it worth it, though?" Ron asked lightly, but hid clenched fingers inside his pocket and held his breath.  
  
"Yeah. It was."  
  
Ron let out his breath quietly and punched Harry in the arm. He then tugged him back to the castle. "Okay, scarhead, time to get back to the gloom and doom of dormitory life."  
  
Ron watched the lines return between Harry's eyebrows and kicked himself inwardly for mentioning it.  
  
  
~*~*~  
  
  
Later, in the common room while everyone else was watching Seamus do a rousing rendition of Flitwick falling backwards into a bubbling cauldron of strengthening solution –- complete with a twitching growth spurt, Ron wondered about the feeling earlier that had pushed him to take Harry outside, away from everything.  
  
For some reason, his guess had been right. He didn't know how, but it was. And though he couldn't figure it out, Ron had learned early on not to question things when they worked out, particularly when he could do something for Harry.  
  
  
~*~*~  
  
  
On several occasions over the next weeks, Ron acted when the sentiment hit him and pulled Harry away from class. They'd walk down by the lake and Ron would make jokes and frequently glance at the lines on Harry's face to see if they diminished.  
  
At some point, Ron began to wonder exactly who he was doing it for, Harry or himself...  
  
The fifth time it happened, though, weeks later, Ron was perplexed. There was something that bothered him. Each time, Ron had just _known_ to get Harry out. And the one day that Ron'd known and had not been able to do anything about it (it wasn't his fault that Seamus had dropped Dean's cauldron on his foot and Ron had to be rushed to the hospital wing to get it fixed) Harry ended up in the hospital wing twenty-four minutes later because he'd been in a brawl with Malfoy over some stupid _Mudblood_ comment that Harry'd learned to ignore years earlier.  
  
Ron had watched, perplexed, when Dean Thomas and Terry Boot dragged an agitated Harry into the hospital wing, glaring at Malfoy, who'd walked in moments earlier with a satisfied smirk.  
  
Madame Pomfrey had taken one look at Harry and said, "Go sit on Weasley's bed, Potter, and do try to shut up."  
  
Harry collapsed at the foot of his bed and caught the red-stained rag that Dean tossed him, pushing it back up to his swollen nose.  
  
"What happened?" Ron had whispered.  
  
"Malfoy," Harry had replied with a growl.  
  
"But... _Harry_?" Ron had nearly been afraid to ask.  
  
"I dunno, Ron," Harry said, "Something just came over me, like... I'd been on edge ever since we left the Great Hall and then you weren't there to tell me that Malfoy's face looked like a squashed up Poodle or some other creature that I'm sure you make up just to get me to focus on something else."  
  
There it was again. His _feeling_ had been right, but if Ron'd only acted in time. Ron didn't know how he knew, how he'd anticipated Harry's moods.  
  
It wasn't making sense.  
  
That afternoon he skived off Quidditch practice and spent four hours in the library with Arithmancy tables trying to see if there was some mathematical pattern or numerical correlation to Harry's moods and exactly when he needed to get the hell out of the castle.  
  
There weren't. At least as far as he could tell. The problem was that he hadn't been keeping track and Arithmancy didn't put much stock in _feelings_. He wondered briefly about finding help, but he was damned if he was going to ask Hermione. She'd just think that he was interested in the bloody subject when all he wanted to do was figure out how to help Harry. As he walked back in through the portrait hole to see Neville showing off his newest plant, Ron figured that skiving off class every few weeks to preserve Harry's sanity was a small price to pay.  
  
  
~*~*~  
  
  
That night it took Harry such a long time to fall out of the nightmare that Ron had started to worry. He sat on Harry's bed and stroked lines down Harry's arm.  
  
Then Harry moved slightly, shifting from one dream into another, his eyes rapidly flitting under tight eyelids. Ron noticed a rise in the blanket over Harry's hips and realized with a start what that meant. The knowledge sent an immediate jolt to his groin and he shifted awkwardly as his own body responded in kind.  
  
That was an interesting development, Ron thought, sighing. Not only was he trying to help his best friend silently fight his nighttime demons and not succeeding, he was now sitting on his best friend's bed with a hard-on.  
  
He went back to tracing Harry's arm until Harry's body finally relaxed many minutes later and Ron went back to his own bed.  
  
He stroked himself to a muffled climax before falling into sweaty dreams of his own.  
  
  
~*~*~  
  
  
That morning, when they awoke, Harry looked at him strangely, touching his lips with his fingers, "Did we... did I..." he trailed off.  
  
"What?" Ron asked nervously.  
  
"Nothing," Harry said.  
  
  
~*~*~  
  
  
A few weeks later it happened again. This time Ron was not so much shocked as he was confused. Why did this happen when the lines on Harry's face were the deepest he'd ever seen them?  
  
And they wouldn't go away.  
  
No matter how many soft words he whispered; no matter how many times he smoothed Harry's hair... it didn't help. He leaned slowly down to Harry's face to make sure he was still breathing regularly and the utter scent overwhelmed him. It was so completely _Harry_. He felt a distinct rise in his own trousers and looked around the room in horror.  
  
No one else was stirring.  
  
Why would they be? It was the middle of the night.  
  
Harry made a mewling sound deep in the corner of his throat and arched up as if in pain and in Ron's rush to soothe him by running his fingers down Harry's arm, he accidentally brushed the tops of Harry's tented pyjamas with his forearm and Harry's face relaxed.  
  
Every line.  
  
Then he sighed audibly. Curiously, Ron moved his hand back and brushed it again.  
  
  
~*~*~  
  
  
Two nights later, Ron was lying awake. Waiting, in case Harry needed him. Muffled grunts and harsh, slippery skin sounds told Ron that Seamus was trying the oldest sleep remedy. That somehow made him feel worse.  
  
Should he go over and try to help Seamus sleep? Who was he, really? The jerk-off fairy? Helping those who just couldn't get to sleep? Seamus was pulling himself off -- why didn't Ron feel the need to go aid with that like he obviously did with Harry? What was his problem? Touching Harry, stroking him, murmuring soft words like a girlfriend...  
  
It was one thing to skip class when Harry was on edge, but another thing entirely to touch him... _Stop,_ Ron told himself. _Get the bloody hell over yourself and help Harry._ Then Harry sighed deeply and hot desire shot through him like panic. _Bugger._ It was worse than he thought.  
  
  
~*~*~  
  
  
Nearly a week later they were sitting on Dean's bed waiting to tear madly into a care package that Dean's mum had sent for no reason other than she missed her son.  
  
A Thomas care package was always great cause for celebration in the seventh year's room -- they'd spent the past six years keeping it a secret from the other Gryffindors. The boys were careful to let Dean dive into the cornucopia of sweets, biscuits, and the bottle of peppermint schnapps that Seamus always said tasted like mouthwash before downing nearly half the bottle.  
  
Dean looked at them all, "What are you sods waiting for? Tuck in!"  
  
The bed exploded into a flurry of flying wrappers and low laughter as Neville reached for the _Tiger_ bars and Seamus cursed him spectacularly with words they were all convinced Seamus had made up himself. Seamus' laughter rang out and he started a long story about Irish curses related to Leprechaun candy and Ron zoned out. He'd heard that story the last four times Dean's mum had sent a care package.  
  
Watching Harry listening to Seamus, Ron found himself eyeing the lines on Harry's face. They always seemed so much shallower when Harry was smiling, relaxed. But he didn't know how to keep it that way.  
  
Harry caught Ron's look and smiled slowly. Ron felt a jolt similar to when he'd caught Harry's erection the first time, but this time it felt more like a slow spread through the center of his body, stretching outward to the tips of his ears, fingers, toes.  
  
Suddenly Ron worried that this feeling was going to pervade his waking hours now, too.  
  
Neville told them a story about finding his Gran's knickers and underclothes in the bathtub when he was eight and worrying that they were some awful new Wizarding clothes she was going to make him wear at her next party, and Harry nearly fell off the bed he was laughing so hard.  
  
Ron caught Harry, hauled him back onto the bed, and kissed Harry's temple when he had his balance back. Then he froze.  
  
Holy bloody fucking hell, what had he just _done_?  
  
None of the other boys seemed to have seen it and Ron relaxed slightly, but he was afraid to look at Harry. Harry grinned at him, "Thanks, mate. If you hadn't caught me, I would'a been back in the hospital wing again."  
  
Ron laughed, "I reckon they ought to name a bed after you, you're there so much."  
  
"Aye," Seamus echoed. "They could call it the Harry Potter memorial got-his-arse-kicked-out-from-under-him-again-bed-thing."  
  
Dean snorted, "Clearly you have a future as a poet, Seamus."  
  
Neville laughed, "Seamus tried to rhyme "pebble" with Neville the other day at breakfast."  
  
"He didn't!" Harry said. "He tried to rhyme Harry with "dreary" one day last week when it was raining!"  
  
"Hey!" Seamus said, indignant. "I make up those rhymes to make you guys laugh. Obviously you all don't appreciate my poetic genius. Perhaps I ought to transfer into Ravenclaw."  
  
Dean laughed again, "Sure thing, Finnigan. Though, Ravenclaws probably take their rhymes in couplets and sonnets."  
  
"Couples of _what_?" Seamus asked.  
  
Ron grinned and elbowed Harry in the side before turning to Seamus, "Maybe you should just stick to Ron. It's the easiest name to rhyme, and you clearly need the practice."  
  
As the other boys dissolved into a fresh bout of the easy laughter that comes with being seventeen and up past curfew with people you just _know_ , Ron suddenly felt a wash of hope. Hope was good.  
  
Hope was _really_ good.  
  
  
~*~*~  
  
  
One day when they skipped class, the two of them ended up sitting at the edge of the forbidden forest, watching the shadows tiptoe over the grass and discussing their old adventures in the enchanted car.  
  
The wind shifted and pushed Harry's hair completely off his unlined forehead. Ron watched, entranced, and a current prickled under his skin, setting the hair on his skin on edge. Before his consciousness caught up with him, Ron leaned in and brushed their lips together so softly.  
  
So _perfectly_ softly.  
  
"Oh-" Harry said.  
  
"Sorry," said Ron, swallowing.  
  
"No, it's... I like... _do it again_?" Harry asked, and Ron tried hard not to hope that Harry was pleading as he leaned forward to push their lips together, harder this time.  
  
Harry made a harsh sound in the back of his throat and mashed their lips together, bruising Ron's lip with his teeth. Ron felt a sharp tingle flow through him and he nearly cried, it felt so good. What was happening to him? But, when Harry's fingers brushed his knee, gripped it, everything felt suddenly settled and fine and _right_ and Ron peeked through fluttering lids to see Harry's face relaxed and open and...  
  
...maybe he _wasn't_ ruining everything.  
  
Minutes later, when Harry pulled away, his lips lush and full from pressing against Ron's for so long, Ron was ready with fourteen excuses and three jokes to change the subject if he needed to. He tensed, waiting for Harry to finally come to his senses and slug him, but-  
  
Harry started to lean in again and Ron wondered if it might have been the beginning of something if the chime for the end of class hadn't sounded and they both moved back, startled.  
  
  
~*~*~  
  
  
All through supper, Ron felt slightly on edge, watching Harry. Though, Harry seemed more relaxed than he'd been in a long time, teasing Ginny and asking Colin about his camera. When they trekked back to the common room, Harry and Ron lagged behind, as they normally did, thinking of ways to put off the assignments that were beginning to pile up.  
  
They suffered through four hours of homework, interrupted only by giggles by some of the first years when Seamus, lying on his back with a text for _History of Magic_ propped on his chest, let out a litany of Irish curses when Neville stumbled over him on his way to the bathroom, knocking the book over onto Seamus' face. Finally, when his chest closed in on itself with anticipation and worry and _what the bloody hell_ , Ron excused himself to go to bed.  
  
Harry mumbled his own _Good Night_ and followed Ron up the stairs.  
  
"Night, Ron," Harry murmured after they'd gotten ready and closed his eyes sleepily.  
  
Ron laid on his back, watching the tops of his bed curtains ripple with the slow breeze that often hung around their room when Dean left the window open, waiting to see if Harry would need him that night. The air felt suddenly heavy with unspoken thoughts, with silent questions and Ron had to open his mouth just to breathe.  
  
He wondered if he was still just helping Harry sleep. If it had somehow become so much _more_ than that.  
  
  
~*~*~  
  
  
But they didn't talk about it. Harry woke up one night during a nightmare with wide eyes and held onto Ron, his sweaty brow sliding over Ron's shoulder as Ron trailed soothing kisses over Harry's neck.  
  
Gradually, things moved further. They moved with silent, met-eye agreement and Harry started waking up from every nightmare, telling Ron about them in a hushed voice. Ron listened as Harry recounted green smoke and chilling laughter with horror coiling in his own stomach. But the lines on Harry's tight forehead lessened with each tale, with each clenching, viscous story, and they clung together with kisses and reached for each other through cotton pyjamas, stroking and sighing into the night air.  
  
Each night they grew braver, moving onto bare skin and kissing with searching, open mouths until one night...  
  
  
~*~*~  
  
  
Harry's wet finger brushed him somewhere _new_ and Ron gasped with a mixture of surprise and inexplicable desire. It was something he'd dreamed about, wondered about... something he _wanted_.  
  
"Ron," Harry drew back, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean... I..."  
  
"Harry, no," Ron breathed, "You can... w-we can. I want you to. I want... _more._ "  
  
  
~*~*~  
  
  
Several days later, Harry panted above him in their dormitory vacated in the rush to Hogsmeade, "How do we... I mean, you're so tight, I need... I don't think I'm going to _fit_. I think you need to... push _out_ or something... yeah... like that."  
  
Ron's body tensed, as if screaming, _Ouch!_ and _Fuck!_ and _Get it out!_ , and he repeated to himself, _you want this-you want this-you want this_ , willing his body to relax as tears leaked from the corners of his eyes.  
  
Harry was sweating above him, his tongue between his teeth, "Ron I don't think I can get in far enough, I'm... _ouch_. Fuck. Maybe if you turned over?"  
  
So Ron started to turn over, but cuffed Harry in the head with his ankle as he did, "Sorry," he said apologetically.  
  
"S'ok," Harry grunted, red-faced and dazed. "We don't... _have_ to do this, y'know."  
  
Time stopped and Ron looked at Harry, worriedly. "I do want this. I just... I'm sorry."  
  
Harry looked stricken, "No, no, don't be sorry. I just don't want you to feel like you have to-"  
  
Ron cut him off, "Harry. I _want_ this."  
  
And he did. Mostly.  
  
Or at least, he wanted _Harry_.  
  
So Ron turned over without hitting Harry in the head again and then Harry _was_ inside him and it was uncomfortable and he felt... full and stretched. There was an uncomfortable dry burn that sent a warning to his stomach and Ron closed his eyes against the salty-wet heaves and squeezed his fingers into the sheets as Harry thrust into him again. He thought, _this won't take long, it won't take long, it won't._ And then Harry leaned way over so his chest was touching Ron's back and his lips met the back of Ron's neck and he kissed him. Kissed him hard and breathily and whispered in a voice ragged with lust, "You feel... so g-good."  
  
And then Ron relaxed. Slowly. He unclenched muscles in his lower abdomen, hips, thighs... He felt the sweat-slick slip of Harry's chest against him again and Ron realized, _Harry is inside me. Inside. Me. I want this_. And he moved back against Harry, meeting the next thrust and Harry groaned again and it was throaty and _guttural_ and Ron felt his prick twitch and suddenly he _wanted_ it. Really wanted it. He wanted Harry to make that noise again.  
  
He pushed back again and felt Harry reach around and slide his hand over his stomach. "Are you okay with this?" Harry asked in a voice both tender and raw. "I mean..." Harry paused and Ron wondered if it was agony to stop moving, "Th-this feels _amazing_ , but I can't stand to think that I'm hurting you. And I think I might be doing it wrong. And what if..."  
  
"Harry, hush," Ron commanded. His body was relaxing; he could feel his own brow unknit and he suddenly wanted Harry to keep _moving_. He took Harry's hand and brought it down to his own cock. "T-touch me... _please_."  
  
"But am I hurting you?" Harry persisted. Ron could hear something in Harry's voice and knew his forehead was creased as he spoke.  
  
"Harry, you're not hurting me, it's just... it burns a little," Ron explained. "But I think... I want... Harry, you're _inside_ me. I c-can't... please don't stop."  
  
And Ron really did like this new feeling, new sensation, being... _fucked_. He found that he couldn't bear down or clench his muscles or else it _hurt._ So he concentrated instead on pushing back against Harry and guiding Harry's slick hand over his cock and listening to the small moans and grunts that Harry was making into his back.  
  
He couldn't imagine how Harry could last so long, but the time shifted and when Harry's hand slipped off him and he wrapped that arm around his stomach and thrusted with a guttural _Ron!_ , Ron shuddered and the painpainpainpleasure suddenly changed and he cried out Harry's name and stopped thinking every thought that came into his mind and just thought,  
  
 _Harry... Harry... Harry..._  
  
Broken shouts from a game outside echoed through the window and Ron wondered vaguely if he would even, if he _could_ even, stop if the entire school walked in. Harry's chest was no longer brushing his back, and his hand clenched Ron's hip, fingers digging wetly into his skin. Ron heard Harry's breath hitch and Harry moaned, "Ron... Ron, _god_ , m'gonna..." and then there was a sudden shuddering rush inside him and-  
  
 _oh-_  
  
Ron didn't know when he'd grabbed his own prick, but he was so hard and he had to -- _had to_ \-- feel this with Harry. The flashing noises around him faded into a muddled _Harry... Harry... Harry..._ and the-  
  
 _oh_ , the-  
  
...the liquid molten tingling fire started deep inside him and spread and _burst_ and _holybloodyhell_ he moaned and tensed and came roughly into the silken air...  
  
As he rode through the blinding aftershocks, Ron could barely hold himself off the bed any longer. He felt Harry slowly pull away -- pull _out of him_ \-- and Ron collapsed onto his side on the bed, "Bloody _hell,_ Harry," he said weakly.  
  
Harry grinned and leaned in to kiss him messily before pulling back with a laugh, "Yeah," he agreed. "Just... _yeah._ "  
  
The afternoon light dissolved around them and Ron punched Harry lightly in the shoulder when they both yawned widely. The world seemed to open into a hopeful canvas of yellows and reds as Ron watched Harry drift off to sleep. Shadows from the fading sun moved across the room and the lines slowly, slowly melted from Harry's face into the careless night air.  
  
And for the first time in months, Ron, too, fell asleep with a smile on his face.  
  
  
~*~*~

 

~thank you so much for reading! ♥ 


End file.
